Listen
by APieceOfCrap
Summary: Emotions can be tough to face, just like long lost brothers and polar-opposite siblings.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi. I plan on this being a two-shot so let me know if you like it I guess~**

* * *

Mabel was usually the one to brighten the mood of any depressing situation, but right now she was at a loss for words. She was sitting at the table with Dipper eating breakfast as the sun rose over the horizon of trees just outside, but the usually happy atmosphere was missing. Even as Grunkle Stan continued to build a huge stack of pancakes, Mabel could see the tension in how stiffly he held himself.

She glanced over at Dipper, hoping for him to say something or at least give her a look that said 'I know', but nothing. He was staring at his food unseeing with his hand propping his head up, obviously deep in thought. Mabel decided that he was just in shock at finding the author.

Personally, she was more caught up in the fact that _Stan had a twin brother?!_ It explained the twin gene that had resulted in the two twelve-year-olds but other than that a lot of questions remained. Even after hearing their life story, Mabel didn't get it.

"You okay, sweetie?" Grunkle Stan grunted indifferently. His back was turned, trying to hide the concern about the girl's quietness. In the whole summer so far Mabel hadn't stopped talking and laughing for more than five minutes unless she was asleep, and still, it wasn't rare for her to giggle as she dreamt about who knew what.

"Pssh, I'm fine, Grunkle Stan," Mabel waved him off, breaking out of her funk. "Just thinking about what Dipstick and I are gonna do for the rest of the summer!" With that remark, she grabbed her brother in a playful chokehold. He looked up at her and smirked, the same amused grin that Stan wore as he watched the two.

"You come up with anything yet?" Stan chuckled, sitting next to his great niece.

"Not really," she shrugged. "But I'm sure Dipper'll be exploring more and hounding Grunkle Ford about the journals." Stan's face fell at the sound of his brother's name, especially it being linked with his 'Grunkle' title. It was only for a second, but the kids still noticed.

"Just … don't go downstairs to bother him," he said quietly, looking out the doorway that led down the hall, into the gift shop and towards the vending machine. "And don't be too full-on, kid," he added, nudging Dipper's shoulder lightly. The kid nodded and got up to leave the room, tugging the front of his hat further down his forehead. The two remaining in the kitchen anticipated the beeps of the vending machine, but instead, they heard the front door open and close.

"Why are you so upset?" Mabel finally asked. Stan glanced down at her with his eyebrows creased. "I mean, you brought him back. What's the problem?"

Grunkle Stan exhaled a sort of breathless laugh, but mostly a sigh. Despite the impressions the kid gave off, she did know what was going on. "He doesn't want to be here. He's angry at me for jeopardising the fate of the universe."

"He would have done the same for you," Mabel said. Stan opened his mouth to argue but she shook her head and held her small hand up. "Based on your story, you guys cared about each other more than anything, right? You were angry at him but you still spent all these years trying to get him out. He would have done it for you, and of course he wants to be here, he just doesn't want to admit that he needed help. Dipper's kinda like that too."

"Yeah, pretty clear where your geek brother got his traits," Stan laughed. "Thing is, even if my brother did do the same thing for me, it wouldn't have taken him thirty years. Heck, I only got him out because Dipper found Journal 3. It was all luck."

"And you still did it," Mabel nodded. "You love him, so you saved him, even though you had a huge fight and didn't talk for so long. He totally would have done it for you."

"But who knows what he had to face out there?" Stan asked loudly, starting to get a bit worked up. "He had to deal with that by himself. What if he's gone completely insane? What do I do then?"

"But he hasn't," the girl stated firmly. "If he did, he would have come out of that portal acting like Old Man McGucket, or not even come out at all. At the very least he would have given up on his experiments. But he's down there right now. He's okay. And if he's not, you can help him."

"What if he doesn't want it?" Stan muttered. Mabel gripped his arm.

"Then I'll knock some sense into him," she said very seriously, the words sounding out of place coming from her mouth. Stan laughed and patted her hand, then sent her off to find her brother while he cleaned the food up. He frowned at Dipper's empty plate and began to eat the food himself as he walked around the room clearing things up.

Unbeknownst to him, Stanford Pines had been standing just outside the doorframe ever since Dipper left. He had heard everything, but couldn't find it in himself to confront the con artist. Every word Mabel had spoken was true, and the silent but angry glare she had shot at him as she ran by was truly frightening. Ford didn't remember Stan being like that when they were that age. Then again, he didn't remember much of anything anymore. Just the shrill laughs of a certain triangular demon as he set his henchmen at the author.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry it took so long to update. Here is part two. Please enjoy~**

* * *

Dipper didn't know where he was going, just that he had to go somewhere he wouldn't immediately be found. He found a place in the woods with no supernatural activity at all - the least expected place for him to be - and sat down with his back against the trunk of a tree.

The author, the guy who wrote the book he had been _obsessing_ over, was living under the same roof as him. And it was his great uncle?!

Dipper didn't trust Stan anymore. He didn't hate him, he just didn't trust him. The crimes, the fraud, living under his twin brother's - the _author's!_ \- name for so many years? The most 'real' thing about him was his ability to con people for cash.

He didn't know how to feel about Stanford, who Mabel had immediately taken to calling 'Grunkle Ford'. He was the author, yes, but Dipper wasn't an idiot. He would have to have an actual conversation with the man to make a judgement about him.

And Mabel. _Mabel_.

Something in their relationship had broken the moment she let go and didn't press that button. He still loved her - of _course_ he did - but he couldn't deny the betrayal he had felt as the portal opened and everything faded, because it wouldn't have happened if she had listened to him.

Sure, the universe didn't tear, and Stan got his brother, the _author_ , back, but it was the what if's that Dipper got hung up on. Everything could have been destroyed, everyone ceasing to exist. Nothing left.

The appearance of the author left more questions unanswered than it solved.

Why didn't Ford destroy the portal blueprints if they were so dangerous? What was inside the portal? What would Stan have done if Mabel _had_ pressed that shut down button? What if someone had gotten hurt beyond the small cuts and bruises they had all received?

After being trapped in his thoughts for a while, the boy stood up and went back to the Mystery Shack. He went through the daily routines with Mabel, Stan and Soos, who had arrived while Dipper had been out. Watch TV, eat, do whatever. Before long, it was nighttime.

"I wonder if Grunkle Ford is gonna hang out with us sometime?" Mabel wondered aloud from her bed. "I hope he does. We can show him everything he's missed out on. He can catch up on Duck-tective before the season finale!"

"Maybe," Dipper responded with a yawn from across the room. "He might be busy, though. And are you sure he wants to be called 'Grunkle Ford'?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine with it," Mabel waves him off. "Why're you acting so casual about him, anyway? We all know you're desperate to grill him on the journals."

"Yeah yeah," he chuckles, leaning over to put out the light. "G'night, Mabel." Mabel hums in response, falling asleep almost immediately. Dipper doesn't have quite as much luck, but eventually he does fall into darkness.

* * *

Dipper thrashed as he slept, not waking his naturally deep-sleeping sister thankfully but that didn't make it any better.

 _Eeny, meeny, miney, YOU._

The feeling, the agonizing pain, of his very soul being ripped out of his own body.

 _Race you to the bottom of the stairs!_

The cringe as his body was flung down the stairs, making a huge _crash_ sound as it fell. How had no one heard that anyway?

 _Ahh! Body spasms! What are these?!_

A brief feeling of relief as Mabel gained the upper hand, quickly tiring his body out.

 _This isn't the last you'll hear of me! Big things are coming. YOU CAN'T STOP ME!_

But it was the laughter, the shrill pitch of Bill Cipher's manical cackling that drove Dipper to wake up. He panted, holding one hand to his chest as he tried to calm his erratically beating heart. There was no way he was going to be falling back asleep again, so he got up from his bed and tiptoed across the room to go downstairs. A sudden murmur from behind had him stopping in his tracks and peering over his shoulder anxiously. Mabel looked like she was going to wake up and catch him, but instead she rolled over and mumbled some sort of incoherent sentence.

Dipper crept down the stairs as quietly as possible and, once he knew he was out of earshot of Stan's room, walked a bit more casually into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk. Whenever Mabel or Dipper - usually Dipper - had a nightmare, their mother would give them a glass of milk to calm them down. It might have just been the placebo effect but it had worked for Dipper so far.

He turned around to sit at the table to slowly down the drink, only to come face to face with Stanford Pines. Ford had been staring at Dipper since he entered, and now Dipper was frozen too. They both stared at each other, not having spoken since their awkward departure coming out of the portal room.

"…Are you okay?" Ford finally asked, breaking the silence. Dipper stared at him, this time in confusion, until he felt the dampness on his skin. He raised his hands and felt his face to discover that he'd been crying in his sleep. He spun around, cheeks flushed, as he desperately scrubbed underneath his eyes. He almost didn't want to go to the table and sit down with his great uncle, but the tiredness of his limbs forced him too.

"Did you have a…nightmare? Or something?" Ford pressed. Dipper shrugged, looking down. "Do you want to talk about it?" Dipper glanced up at him uncertainly. "Come on, kid, how hard could it be to surprise me?" he asked with a chuckle.

Dipper sighed. "I loved investigating the creatures from your journals, but one of them hasn't been…the best," he said, stubbornly refusing to look at anything besides his shaky hands.

Ford had a feeling that he knew which one, but decided to remain hopeful. It wasn't working. "Which one?"

"Bill Cipher."

Ford raised his hand to place on the kid's shoulder in comfort, but decided not to. "Yeah," he muttered. "He's a piece of work. He doesn't usually go after you unless something happens first. What happened?"

Dipper went into a panicked ramble about Li'l Gideon summoning Bill to get into Stan's mind and everything that happened after.

"Then he, uh," Dipper stammered, embarrassed about what he was about to say. "He kinda, you know, tricked me into making a deal. Stole my body for a while." Ford's eyes widened in shock. He had already dealt with the demon enough to curse his mind as a fully grown adult, but experiencing that kind of stuff as a 12 year old?

"How did you defeat him?" Ford asked curiously.

" _I_ didn't," he responded, chuckling and scratching the back of his head. "Mabel did. Great Uncle Ford?"

"Yes?"

"How am I supposed to get better after all this?" he whispered, a new set of tears threatening to burst. "It's not just the puppet thing. Bill trying to get into Grunkle Stan's mind? There's still heaps of summer left and I don't think he's gonna leave me alone. It's not even me I'm worried about. What about Stan, or Mabel, or Wendy or Soos or-"

Ford could tell Dipper was nearing hyperventilation and grabbed his great nephew by the shoulders. "Dipper," he said firmly. "Bill _won't_ be hurting you or anyone. Not this summer, and never again. I'll make sure of it."

They each stared into each other's eyes for several seconds, before Dipper burst out in tears and flung himself into Ford's arms. Not knowing what to do, Ford hugged him back. He heard a creak and looked up from Dipper's messy head of hair to see Stanley in the doorway. Not since their father kicking Stan out had Ford seen him so _sad_. Ford nodded to him, mentally telling his brother _it's okay_. Pressing his lips into a tight line, Stan did the same.

Maybe they could come back from everything and be brothers again.

All it took was listening.


End file.
